A Cheesy Reward

The triumphant return of Lord Fluffernutter was, to put it mildly, an anticlimax. Not for the cat, mind you. Lord Fluffernutter, a creature whose ego seemed to rival Barnaby’s most embellished battle accounts, regarded his rescue with the regal indifference of a monarch forced to endure a peasant’s embrace. He’d been deposited, with much dramatic flair and a few well-aimed claws from the feline himself, into the waiting, trembling arms of Elara.

Elara, who had been pacing her porch like a caged opera singer, let out a shriek that could curdle milk at fifty paces. “My precious! My darling! My fluffy little terror!” she wailed, burying her face in the cat’s surprisingly dense fur. Lord Fluffernutter, for his part, merely blinked slowly, a silent testament to his enduring disdain for human displays of affection.

Barnaby, still picking a stray ginger hair from his greying beard, grunted. “Right then, old woman. Cat’s back. Where’s our… uh… compensation?” He glanced at Silas, who was dusting off his battered leather jerkin with a sigh that suggested he’d rather be anywhere else. Anywhere that involved less fur and more ale.